Good to Great/ Good Grief!

Good to Great
Anyone else out there read the book? I'm reading it now and maybe it's because I'm exhausted or maybe it's because I'm going through a phase of conscientious illiteracy - but I'm thinking I might have to do the audiobook. That way I can learn and do other shit at the same time.

I spent the weekend in Minneapolis, I really didn't give the city its due in my last blog, typos, misspellings, incomplete thoughts and all. Fabulous city. Jar-jar calls it the Mini-Apple and I'm feeling that. Everyone was so doggone friendly, too. Excellent customer service everywhere I went, people on the street smiled. Honestly, the unfriendliest place I've ever been was Indiana - Hoosier Hospitality? Even living in Manhattan I could connect with people on the street, hang out with a homeless person, get a walking partner for a few or 50 blocks if I was willing to tolerate getting hit on the entire time. San Francisco is a friendly city, hell, people will share their cocaine and make you a cheesecake that is 80% marijuana and LSD or have stranger-sex in public buildings - now that's friendly! For the record, I don't use illegal drugs and thus, while deeply honored by the offers, never took anyone up (but still, tell me that's not friendly).

Indiana, not so much.

Well, the trip to Minneapolis was a business trip. Emphasis on TRIP, as in, head trip, mind trip - c.r.a.z.y. Actually, there was just an element of crazy - one single element - but we all know one is exactly one too many as far as I'm concerned. It chafes my ass when people critisize others because of their own feelings of inadequacy. The other thing that chaps my hide, since I'm on the subject, is age-ism. I've been working since I was 8 years old and I've always worked in industries where my "peers" are significantly older than I am. I like that dynamic, it makes separating work and personal life easier and I see it as an opportunity to learn new skills and hear interesting stories. Every once in a while, though, I land in an environment or around a person or people who can't see beyond themselves and their disappointments with life long enough to give me a chance. This doesn't stop me from achieving my goals, collecting my stories or learning, but it hinders the process considerably and makes it uncomfortable on both sides.

This weekend I did an avoidance dance with someone who I, theoretically, should have been getting plenty of "face-time" with. But every time I made that foray into sharing thought and ideas I was condescendingly told that "well, you'll understand once you get older" or, worse, I was given some off-the-wall anecdote and called (hold your drawers) "pookie."

Now, this person isn't stupid. This person is highly intelligent, but I think she's professionally frustrated and personally under stress (or whatever, do I care, NO). Regardless, I saw the chasm grow between us as the weekend progressed. What had been a crack or simple schism became a canyon that I'm not willing to gear up for crossing. It's not worth it. In the timeless phrase of the method actor "what's my motivation?"

What I'm talking about is not a function of age. I can count a lot of people twice this person's age who approach life with considerably more wit, wisdom and tolerance. At least 10 of those people are in their 80s. There was a quote I liked that i read this weekend and i think it applies to those people who are so stuck in the hot tar of their lives that they have to suck the juice out of others with condescension, malice or whatever other little tricks they have accumulated over the years.

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty." - Henry Ford

Old Henry may have been a racist anti-semite, but he was no dummy. That there mentioned above is the sum total of how I approach life and people. I like to see the lights turn on, but boy is it a strain to walk through calling out for a rope in the darkness of another person's mind.

Here is the kicker, by the end of the trip I'd given up all pretense of communication or interest in communication. I decided to talk to more interesting people, from whom i could learn something because they were willing to share and talk. And on the plane ride home, the "old" person had a small shift in (consciousness, perception, motivation, desire) and started chatting me up. Asked if I had friends around my homebase. Looked confused when I said my friends tend to live exactly as I do, with a homebase and nomadic soul. Maybe she sensed the professional situation was not "sold" with her as a participant and my young ass was part of the decision-making mechanism - something that had possibly been doubted or overlooked. Or maybe my rhapsodies about Prince a few nights prior stopped seeming like hormonal outpourings and more like passion - pure passion - for artistry. Who knows? More importantly, who cares? Not I, says the cat.

I want to call my favorite elderly people and listen to them laugh about all of this.

Fuzzy pillows to you all...